Mark Anthony Stroman was a participant or observer in the following events:

Mark Anthony Stroman, a member of a white supremacist prison gang, murders Dallas store owner Waqar Hasan as he grills hamburgers in his store. Stroman will later tell a prison inmate that his murder of Hasan is his ninth crime against Muslims and Middle Easterners, and says he is murdering them in revenge for the 9/11 attacks (see October 4, 2001 and After). [Push Junction, 7/6/2011] Almost ten years later, Stroman will be executed for a similar murder (see July 20, 2011).

Mark Anthony Stroman, a member of a white supremacist prison gang, shoots Rais Bhuiyan in the face with a shotgun while Bhuiyan is working at a Dallas gas station and convenience store. Bhuiyan is a former Air Force pilot from Bangladesh. As Bhuiyan will later recall the incident, Stroman bursts into his store wearing a hat, sunglasses, and a bandanna, and carrying a derringer—a small pistol modified to fire shotgun cartridges. Bhuiyan believes he is going to be robbed and tells Stroman: “Don’t shoot me please. Take all the money.” Instead of robbing Bhuiyan, Stroman asks, “Where are you from?” Bhuiyan, nonplussed, says, “Excuse me?” and Stroman shoots him. Bhuiyan, pouring blood, falls to the floor and Stroman leaves. Bhuiyan is able to get help by flagging down a nearby ambulance. Initially, he is discharged from the hospital after only one day because he lacks health insurance; for months he sleeps on friends’ couches and relies on physicians’ samples for medication, including painkillers and eye drops. He is eventually able to have his right eye operated on, but loses much of the vision in it. Three dozen shotgun pellets remain in his face. He will say: “I didn’t do anything wrong. I was not a threat to him. I couldn’t believe someone would just shoot you like that.” Stroman will later tell a prison inmate that he is engaged in a killing spree against Muslims and Middle Easterners (see September 15, 2001), and says he is murdering them in revenge for the 9/11 attacks (see October 4, 2001 and After). [Push Junction, 7/6/2011; Independent, 7/9/2011; New York Times, 7/18/2011; CBS News, 7/18/2011] Bhuiyan will attempt to intervene to prevent Stroman, convicted of murdering a store owner weeks after he shot him, from being executed (see (July 18, 2011)). [New York Times, 7/18/2011] That effort will fail, and Stroman will be executed (see July 20, 2011).

Mark Anthony Stroman, a repeat violent felon and member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood, murders a Hindu man as he robs a Mesquite, Texas, gas station. The murder is later classified as a hate crime, as Stroman believes store owner Vasudev Patel, an Indian, is a Middle Eastern Muslim. Stroman enters the gas station early in the morning and demands money from Patel. Patel reaches for a .22 caliber pistol that he keeps under the cash register, but does not retrieve it. Stroman shoots Patel in the chest with a .44 caliber pistol; while Patel is dying on the floor, Stroman attempts to force open the cash register, and tells Patel to “open the register or I’ll kill you.” Law enforcement officials use surveillance video to locate and arrest Stroman. While in jail, Stroman boasts of the robbery and murder to a fellow inmate who will later testify against Stroman. According to the inmate, Stroman tells him that he had “been in the store two or three times previously to check it out and he didn’t see any cameras.” Stroman tells the inmate that he deliberately murdered Patel with a “big long pistol.” Moreover, Stroman says he killed Patel not because of any intent to rob him, but because he hates people of Middle Eastern descent. Stroman tells the inmate that the 9/11 attacks justify what he calls his string of violent attacks, including previous murders, against people he believes are of Middle Eastern origin (see September 15, 2001 and September 21, 2001). Stroman is clear that the violent spree is racially motivated, and says that he intends on going to a shopping mall and beginning to shoot everyone in the mall because so many Middle Eastern people are there. Stroman says that the assaults were his patriotic duty. The inmate will later recall Stroman telling him that since the country “hadn’t done [its] job” since 9/11, “he was going to do it for us.” Stroman is found guilty of Patel’s murder in April 2002 after admitting his guilt, and is sentenced to death; an appeals court certifies the verdict and sentencing in November 2003. Multiple attempts by Stroman to appeal the verdict, including filings with the US Supreme Court, as well as appeals for clemency, are denied. Texas prosecutors present an array of evidence against Stroman, including definitive proof that if released, he would pose an immediate threat to the community. During his trial, they present testimony that he is what Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott terms “a devout white supremacist with antipathy towards those of other races.” [Push Junction, 7/6/2011; The Australian, 7/16/2011; New York Times, 7/18/2011; Think Progress, 7/19/2011] Almost ten years later, Stroman will be executed for killing Patel (see July 20, 2011).

Raisuddin Bhuiyan (left) and Mark Anthony Stroman. [Source: Think Progress]Ten years after a white supremacist attempted to murder him out of hatred for Middle Easterners, Rais Bhuiyan asks the court not to execute the man. Mark Anthony Stroman was convicted of murdering another store owner, Vasudev Patel, after incorrectly deciding that he was a Muslim (see October 4, 2001 and After). Stroman’s murder of Patel, along with his attempted murder of Bhuiyan, was part of a killing spree he has admitted to engaging in after the 9/11 attacks in what he has called “revenge.” Bhuiyan founded an organization, “World Without Hate,” which advocates clemency for Stroman. Bhuiyan tells a London reporter: “I never hated Mark and I never felt angry at him. He did what he did because he was ignorant. He wasn’t capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. It took him several years to come to that realization, but it did come to him.” To New York Times reporter Timothy Williams, Bhuiyan explains that he is following the precepts he was taught as a child. His parents and teachers “raised me with good morals and strong faith,” he says. “They taught me to put yourself in others’ shoes. Even if they hurt you, don’t take revenge. Forgive them. Move on. It will bring something good to you and them. My Islamic faith teaches me this too. He said he did this as an act of war and a lot of Americans wanted to do it but he had the courage to do it—to shoot Muslims. After it happened I was just simply struggling to survive in this country. I decided that forgiveness was not enough. That what he did was out of ignorance. I decided I had to do something to save this person’s life. That killing someone in Dallas is not an answer for what happened on September 11.” Bhuiyan has attempted to meet with Stroman, and says if he is allowed to meet with him, “I would talk about love and compassion. We all make mistakes. He’s another human being, like me. Hate the sin, not the sinner. It’s very important that I meet him to tell him I feel for him and I strongly believe he should get a second chance. That I never hated the US. He could educate a lot of people. Thinking about what is going to happen makes me very emotional.” Williams also is able to receive a typewritten response from Stroman, who is awaiting execution; Stroman includes a photograph of the stricken World Trade Center with his response. In his written response, Stroman calls Bhuiyan “an inspiring soul” who has “Touched My heart and the heart of Many Others World Wide… Especially since for the last 10 years all we have heard about is How Evil the Islamic faith Can be… its proof that all are Not bad nor Evil.” He calls Bhuiyan “a Remarkable man… Who is a Survivor of My Hate.” He praises the strength of Bhuiyan’s “Islamic Beliefs” which have given “him the strength to Forgive the Un-forgivable.” He says that Bhuiyan’s faith has deepened his understanding of his own Christian faith. “A lot of people out There are still hurt and full of hate, and as I Sit here On Texas Death watch counting down to my Own Death, I have been given the chance to openly Express whats inside this Texas Mind and heart, and hopefully that something good will come of this.” Stroman also tells a CBS reporter: “I acted out of rage, love, and stupidity. It’s sad, my split second of hate and anger after 9/11 has caused many people lifetimes of pain and I regret that to this day.… I’ve come from a person with hate embedded into him into a person with a lot of love and understanding for all races.” Bhuiyan says that response is the point of his pleas: “We have to break the cycle of this hate and violence.” Bhuiyan is now suing Texas to stop the execution, claiming his rights as a victim were ignored. [Independent, 7/9/2011; American Civil Liberties Union, 7/14/2011; New York Times, 7/18/2011; CBS News, 7/18/2011; Think Progress, 7/19/2011] He says Texas prosecutors “pushed forward with the death penalty” without consulting him or the families of the other victims as required under the Texas Crime Victims’ Bill of Rights. Neither he nor the families of the other victims were informed of their rights under the legislation that Governor Rick Perry promoted as a guarantee of justice for the victims of crime, Bhuiyan says. “Along with families of the other victims in the case, I have been ignored and sidelined, year after year,” Bhuiyan told reporters on July 15. “If Governor Perry really means it when he says victims’ rights are a priority, we need action rather than hollow words.” [The Australian, 7/16/2011] Under the new law, Bhuiyan has the right to a “victim-offender mediation coordinated by the victim services division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice” with Stroman. [American Civil Liberties Union, 7/14/2011] Dr. Rick Halperin, an anti-death penalty activist from Dallas, says: “If the board recommends clemency and Perry grants it, it would be a major paradigm shift. If they don’t then it’s going to raise serious questions about what is the nature of clemency when the victims of a crime, the survivor of a crime, don’t want this to happen.” [Independent, 7/9/2011] Bhuiyan’s efforts will fail, and Stroman will be executed (see July 20, 2011).

Mark Anthony Stroman on his way to the death chamber. [Source: CBS DFW / London Daily Mail]Mark Anthony Stroman is executed for murdering a store owner he believed to be a Muslim in the days after the 9/11 attacks (see October 4, 2001 and After). A federal judge and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rejected pleas from one of his victims, Rais Bhuiyan, to spare his life (see September 21, 2001 and (July 18, 2011)). Stroman, then a white supremacist and member of the Aryan Brotherhood, went on a killing spree in the Dallas, Texas, area after the 9/11 attacks, claiming it was his duty as an American to seek revenge for the attacks and citing the death of his sister in the attacks (a claim lawyers and authorities cannot verify). But since Bhuiyan began his attempts to win clemency for Stroman, Stroman claimed his mindset changed. He recently told a reporter, “I was an uneducated idiot back then and now I’m a more understanding human being.” Stroman is pronounced dead from lethal injection at 8:53 p.m. at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit. From the death chamber, Stroman asked for God’s grace and said hate in the world had to stop. “Even though I lay on this gurney, seconds away from my death, I am at total peace,” he said. “God bless America. God bless everyone.” Turning to the warden, he issues his final words: “Let’s do this damn thing.” [Chicago Tribune, 7/20/2011; CNN, 7/20/2011; Daily Mail, 7/21/2011]

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